Friday, May 26, 2017

Once Raqqah and Mosul are cleared, the challenge will be rebuilding the Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq -- with real governance and security -- so that follow-on extremist groups don't quickly emerge. This idea of preparing for the "day after" ISIS has gotten lip service from U.S. policymakers for three years, but very little serious planning or funding. It should be an urgent priority for the U.S. and its key Sunni partners, such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

I'll applaud him for that.

Wish more people were saying it.

C.I.?

She's been saying it since August of 2014.

She'd said it before then as well.

But that's when Iraq gets Hayder al-Abadi as the prime minister and that's when Barack begins bombing Iraq daily and sending more US troops in.

Where is the diplomatic surge?

Never comes.

And John Kerry should be ashamed of himself.

He left the Senate to become Secretary of State and then spent his entire term trying to be Secretary of Defense.

He was an outright failure as Secretary of State and has no accomplishments to point to.

None.

Not one.

He used to be my senator and at the end he was phoning it in -- my opinion.

The
bipartisan legislation, which passed the Senate Committee on Veterans’
Affairs by voice vote, would reform the VA by better protecting
whistleblowers and providing the
VA Secretary with stronger measures to discipline and hold bad
employees accountable.The legislation will now move to the full Senate for a vote on final passage.

“Now
that our bipartisan legislation has passed committee, we must continue
to work across party lines to push our VA reforms forward and make them a
reality,”
said Senator Baldwin. “Together, we can build a VA that protects
whistleblowers, many of whom are veterans working to improve the system.
We also need to make sure we are empowering the VA to hold bad actors
accountable because our veterans deserve nothing
less than high quality service and care.”

The
Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act is widely supported by key veterans stakeholders including the VA, U.S. House VA committee leadership and
the American Legion Department of Wisconsin.
This legislation has also won the support of several veterans advocacy
groups that represent millions of veterans in the United States and key
government accountability groups.

Exposure to burn pits at military installations in Iraq & Afghanistan may have caused serious health problems for service members & veterans

9 replies133 retweets160 likes

March 17th the US bombed a building in Mosul. Civilians were inside.
There have been many attempts to confuse the issue -- I've sat through
two Congressional hearings alone where members of Congress offered
conspiracies -- but the reality is that civilians were killed. Now?

BBC NEWS notes,
"The United States has admitted that at least 105 Iraqi civilians were
killed in an air strike it carried out in Mosul in March." The Pentagon
is saying they killed two snipers and that they were the targets of the
strike; however, AP explains "several residents of the Mosul neighborhood told The Associated Press on
Friday there were no IS fighters or explosives inside the house struck
by the U.S. bomb."

Is this is a sign of ignorance of what’s being done with U.S. tax dollars in the Middle East, or just indifference?Perhaps it’s a mixture of both.But there’s a strong case to be that made airstrikes that kill civilians aid the cause of terrorist organizations like ISIS.

In real time, in the US, it briefly made the news in a "Donald Trump
increased the killings!" type of way. Meaning that members of the
so-called 'resistance' (firmly in debt to the centrist core of the
Democratic Party) promoted it as an example of Bad Trump.

In doing so, they revealed that, for them, killing innocent civilians was okay as long as it was less than a hundred at a time.

Which is why they had no objections to the many civilians killed in this same manner when Barack Obama was president.

This further reveals the corruption of the Democratic Party.

The Iraq War was used to give opposition to Bully Boy Bush 'morality.'

And once Democrats got control of both houses, interest in ending the
Iraq War (a promise Nancy Pelosi made ahead of the 2006 mid-term
elections) vanished.

It's why War Hawks like Debra Messing can sling s**t at Susan Sarandon and get away with it.

Susan spoke out against the war.

And suffered for it.

But the Froth In Their Underpants Hillary Clinton Temple Slaves don't
care about that anymore than they care that Hillary voted for the Iraq
War and was a war monger as Secretary of State.

There is no repulsion to the US government continuing to kill civilians.

But if they can find a way to hang the blame solely on Donald Trump, you
better believe that The Debra Messings and their laughable 'resistance'
will find a way to take over the topic of the never-ending Iraq War.

There are other countries bombing Iraq as well.

Samuel Oakford (FOREIGN POLICY) reports:The United States’ coalition partners in the war against the Islamic
State are responsible for at least 80 confirmed civilian deaths from
airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. military officials. Yet
none of their 12 allies will publicly concede any role in those
casualties.These dozen partner nations have launched more than 4,000 airstrikes
combined, the vast majority of which were undertaken by the United
Kingdom, France, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, they
have so far claimed a perfect record in avoiding civilian casualties. An
Airwars investigation for Foreign Policy has now uncovered evidence that disproves that assertion.These confirmed deaths caused by non-U.S. airstrikes came to light in the most recent coalition civilian casualty report,
released April 30. The report quietly referred to 80 new deaths
referenced only as “attributable to coalition strikes to defeat ISIS in
Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to present [that] had not been
previously announced.”Three U.S. Central Command officials confirmed to Airwars and Foreign Policy
that the 80 deaths occurred in incidents that U.S. investigators
concluded were the responsibility of partner nations. But allies
pressured the United States and the coalition against releasing details
of the strikes in question.

On Memorial Day, we pay respects to the fallen from past wars –
including the more than one million American soldiers killed in the
Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam.Yet the nation’s longest and most expensive war is the one that is
still going on. In addition to nearly 7,000 troops killed, the 16-year
conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost an estimated US$6 trillion
due to its prolonged length, rapidly increasing veterans health care and
disability costs and interest on war borrowing. On this Memorial Day,
we should begin to confront the staggering cost and the challenge of
paying for this war.

Six trillion dollars.

$6,000,000,000,000.

Is that typed right?

Six trillion dollars.

And counting.

For the never-ending Iraq War.

The war that Americans gave the Democratic Party both houses of Congress
in the 2006 mid-terms to end. The war that the American people elected
Barack Obama president in 2008 to end.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., today announced that the Senate will consider the
Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act,
legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Johnny
Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs,
Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., ranking member of the
committee, on Tuesday, June 6, when the Senate reconvenes after the
Memorial Day state work period.

“I
am thrilled to see the Senate moving quickly on this important piece of
legislation, and I encourage my colleagues to support this measure as
we take steps to change the culture at the VA and
improve care for our veterans,” said Isakson. “I thank Majority Leader McConnell for his commitment to ensuring our veterans receive the quality care that they deserve.”

In remarks on the Senate floor earlier today, McConnell stated,
“[A]fter the state work
period, we’ll be taking up a bipartisan bill reported out of Committee
just yesterday that will enhance accountability at the VA, improve the
care veterans receive, and empower the VA with the tools necessary to
remove employees who
are failing to perform at the high-quality level our nation’s heroes
richly deserve.”

McConnell continued,
“We know many challenges remain in ensuring that veterans have access to
the care they need and deserve at the VA, but this legislation will
further improve our ability to meet our commitment to them. I appreciate
Chairman Isakson for his continued advocacy
on behalf of our veterans as well as Senator Rubio for his leadership
on this critical legislation. I look forward to the full Senate taking
up the bill and passing it soon.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act was introduced by Isakson, Rubio and Tester on May 11. The
measure passed
the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs by voice vote on Wednesday, May 24.

The
Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act
is widely supported by key veterans stakeholders including the VA and
U.S. House VA committee leadership. It has also won the support of
several veterans advocacy groups that represent millions of veterans in
the United States and key government accountability
groups. Read more about the legislation’s support here.

###

The
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny
Isakson, R-Ga., in the 115th Congress. Isakson is a veteran himself –
having served in the Georgia Air National Guard
from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate Committee on
Veterans’ Affairs since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home
state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations
representing each branch of the military as well as
more than 750,000 veterans.

In the meantime, it’s hardly surprising that a ‘super bug’ would
emerge after three decades of the political and social engineering
necessary to transform left opposition to war into a Red-baiting faction
of warmongers.What else could explain the liberal establishment agitating on behalf
of the FBI and the CIA, citing “grave concerns” about national security
based on Israeli espionage? Notice how no one is asking why this
particular foreign government is so closely embedded into the American
state security apparatus, despite its refusal to curb its illegal
settlement expansion in the occupied territories. Or why Joe Liebermann,
the Apartheid regime’s biggest booster, is being considered to head the
FBI, with the same bipartisan support his Israeli benefactors receive
from both Republicans and Democrats – most notably the “socialist”
Bernie Sanders – to excuse Israel from adhering to international law.

American liberals are upset, it seems, over their “loose-lipped”
president inadvertently cockblocking an Israeli strike on Iran by
sharing gathered intelligence about impending terrorist attacks with a
G8 member state. Russia’s concern for its own security is just more
evidence of the cunning Putin’s dark designs on the Oval Office where by
sleight-of-hand, a leaking bag of Cheetos has replaced the US
presidency.

Hillary Clinton and her frenzied Temple Prostitutes have brought us to this point.

Iraq has opened an inquiry into claims that its forces abused and killed civilians in the battle for Mosul against so-called Islamic State (IS).

An interior ministry statement said it would take legal measures against anyone proven to have been "negligent".It comes after Der Spiegel published an article by a photojournalist who was embedded with the ministry's troops.Ali Arkady says he took pictures of detainees suspended from ceilings and that others were tortured and raped.

Wait, wait! Abuses? And it wasn't reported by Rukmini Callimachi?

Of course, it wasn't reported by her. She's THE NEW YORK TIMES' new Judith Miller -- as we pointed out February 10th.

Rukmini is very popular with Glenn Greenwald but then so was the Iraq War once upon a time.

Rukmini poured propaganda out her blow hole and the usual saps lapped it up like it was 2002 all over again.

Rukmini Callimachi fans should be suspect.

Especially if, like Glenn Greenwald, they got it wrong in real time (he supported the Iraq War).

There's a barrier between those people and critical thought.

REUTERS notes:Iraq's interior minister on Wednesday ordered an investigation into allegations that members of the security forces had tortured, killed and abused civilians in the campaign to oust Islamic State militants from Mosul.The inquiry was in response to a report by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel last week that included images of apparent torture taken by a freelance photographer embedded with the Interior Ministry's elite Emergency Response Division (ERD).Photographs showed detainees accused of affiliation with Islamic State hanging from the ceiling with their arms bent behind them, and the journalist wrote of prisoners being tortured to death, raped and stabbed with knives.

Under a law known as the Leahy law, the U.S. is prohibited from supporting units accused of human rights abuses for which “credible” evidence exists. Officials with the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition could not confirm the allegations against the Iraqi forces but said the United States does not currently train or equip the Emergency Response Division. “Any violation of the law of armed conflict would be unacceptable and should be investigated in a transparent manner,” the U.S.-led international coalition in Iraq said in a statement. “Prime Minister (Haider al-Abadi) has stated that he has a zero-tolerance policy for any improper action by the Iraqi Security Forces and would thoroughly investigate any such allegations.”

RT adds:In the article, which was in stark contrast to Western reporting from Mosul, the photographer claimed that the ERD persecuted numerous civilians on “vague” suspicions of links with IS.The piece included photos by Arkady of people hanging from the ceiling with their arms tied up behind their backs, as well as other torture scenes.The victims were picked up during night raids, which included rape and looting, and taken to villages outside Mosul where there were no foreign journalists, he said.

Oh, Rukmini.

If only someone could have warned us in real time that Rukmini was reporting lies . . .

Oh, wait.

I did.

But don't worry, Rukmini will be fine. (A) THE NEW YORK TIMES has lied about Iraq repeatedly and (B) Glenn Greenwald will continue to support her.

At some point, the world's going to notice that except for the Ed Snowden dumped in his lap, Glenn's not accomplished anything.

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About Me

I'm Michael, Mike to my friends. College student working his way through. I'm also Irish-American and The New York Times can kiss my Irish ass. And check out Trina's Kitchen on my links, that's my mother's site.